5 Essential Linking Strategies for Your Franchise Website

December 18, 2015 |
By
Jordan Wilson

Internal and external linking is a crucial part of search engine optimization
(SEO) efforts, as it is one of the key factors that Google and other search
engines use to determine your site’s ranking in online searches.
With the right linking strategy, you can improve your online visitors’
user experience while also making your website more visible in search
engines. On the flip side, using the wrong practices can get your site
penalized, which will hurt your rankings and make it harder for your franchise
to make it in the top search results.

Here are a few tips your franchise should follow if you want to do linking
the right way:

1. Create Internal Links

One of the easiest ways to use link building is to link your website content
to other related pages within your site. For example, if you are writing
a blog post for your franchise cleaning business about summer vacation
home cleaning tips, you might link to a page on your site that details
your vacation rental cleaning services.

Always make sure the pages you are linking to are actually relevant to
your content. If you start creating internal links that don't make
sense, you will just make your website look spammy, which can result in
a drop in your search engine rankings. You will also confuse your readers,
which will cause those visitors to leave your site. The idea is to use
your internal links as a logical pathway for your users to navigate your website.

2. Use Anchor Text Wisely

Another step for link building is to use the right type of anchor text.
Anchor text is the word or phrase that contains the link. For example,
your blog post about summer cleaning may use the phrase "cleaning
your summer vacation rental" to link to your vacation rental cleaning
services page.

Want another example?

Check out the highlighted, underlined text in this sentence where we link
to last week’s
franchise marketing blog post. That’s anchor text.It is important to make your anchor text closely
related to the content you are linking to, as search engines use this
information to identify the linked page’s subject matter and the
keywords the page should rank for.

You should keep in mind that while it’s a good idea to use keywords
in anchor text, they should flow naturally in the context of your sentences,
and they should be used in various forms on different pages (such as “cleaning
your summer vacation rental” and “summer vacation rental cleaning”).
Overly aggressive keyword optimization of your anchor text could make
your links appear spammy and could hurt user experience.

A good rule of thumb is to use anchor text that will make it clear what
you are linking to. If a visitor won’t know where a link will take
them, you should reconsider the anchor text that you are using.

3. Create Content That Naturally Attracts Links

Having trusted websites link to your content is gold, as these types of
backlinks can make your site look more reputable, which can help boost
your search engine ranking. You can obtain strong backlinks by creating
high-quality content that people will love and want to share. To achieve
this, write content that is informative and highly relevant to your target
audience. Useful how-to blogs, informative articles, infographics, and
FAQs pages are all great idea for content that can naturally attract quality
backlinks.

In years past, backlinks were often achieved by attempting to “game”
the system. It was common to purchase backlinks and the emphasis was on
quantity over quality. That is no longer the case in today’s SEO
world. Links should not necessarily be
built — they should be earned. By focusing on how to create a website worth
sharing, you can naturally achieve links that increase your website’s
authority and reputation.

If you are not already generating this type of content for your franchise,
it’s time to start!

4. Identify Low-Quality Backlinks

It's great when other websites link to your content... unless they
are low-quality websites. You can usually identify these websites by poorly
written content, content that doesn’t follow a cohesive theme, or
violations of Google’s (or other search engines’) SEO guidelines.

You should determine whether your website has any bad backlinks, and then
work to get them removed. You can also ask Google and other search engines
to “disavow” these links, meaning they won’t be used
as part of your website’s ranking. Check out these instructions for
getting backlinks disavowed by Google.

5. Check for Broken Links

Having broken links that result in 404 Page Not Found will hurt your franchise’s
website and frustrate your online visitors. You can use Google Analytics,
Google Search Console (formerly Webmaster Tools), and other online tools
to find broken links within your site, as well as external links that
lead to the site. Once you track down the broken links, you should fix
them or create redirects if the previous destination page no longer exists.

To learn more helpful franchise marketing tips, download our free guide
on how to track the return on investment (ROI) of your online marketing.

About the Author Jordan Wilson is the Senior VP of National Brands at Scorpion. For nearly
a decade, he has worked with businesses of all sizes, from Fortune 500
companies to franchises at the local level. Professionally and personally,
Jordan fosters the relationships he develops with his clients, always
striving to exceed their goals and expectations. Jordan graduated from
the University of Mobile where he played college soccer and won the National
Championship in 2002. He is an avid traveler, and he loves a good Irish
Pub, LSU Football, and spending time with his family.